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For his first overseas journey as president, Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador travels to Washington Tuesday to meet with President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly taken photographs at Mexico and Mexican migrants to rally his base.
The go to, coming simply 4 months earlier than U.S. elections, has many Mexicans cringing. Trump has insulted them, threatened crippling tariffs to strongarm Mexico into taking part in an uncomfortable position in U.S. immigration coverage and insisted they may pay for a border wall meant to maintain migrants out of the U.S.
But López Obrador has had a surprisingly heat relationship with Trump. He likes to level out that extra not too long ago Trump helped Mexico attain a deal with different oil-producing nations to lower manufacturing and aided Mexico in acquiring extra ventilators to face the coronavirus pandemic.
Both presidents discuss a blossoming friendship that appears to stem from their pursuit of unapologetically nationalist agendas.
López Obrador hints at the actual motive for the journey when he reels off U.S. financial statistics — the scale of the U.S. pandemic stimulus bundle, the variety of jobs the U.S. bought again in June.
Mexico’s economic system was in recession earlier than the pandemic, has shed about 1 million jobs since and is forecast to contract this yr by as a lot as 10%.
“This helps us by being neighbors,” López Obrador mentioned Tuesday, earlier than departing. “This is about the economy, it’s about jobs, it’s about well-being.”
By late Tuesday his flight had arrived in Dulles International Airport after a layover in Atlanta.
There is little doubt Trump will strive to use the go to to his benefit.
The encounter will draw consideration to a commerce accord changing one Trump mentioned was a foul deal and can permit the president to bash former Vice President Joe Biden for voting in favor of the outdated North American Free Trade Agreement. Trump may stir his base with sharp phrases for Mexico or just play up López Obrador’s want to specific his gratitude.
In 2016, Trump, then a candidate for the presidency, visited López Obrador’s predecessor, an invite for which President Enrique Peña Nieto was harshly criticized, inlcuding by López Obrador.
Trump left that go to and flew to Arizona the place he railed towards immigrants.
López Obrador, a pragmatist and nationalist above all, is aware of there isn’t a extra necessary ally than the behemoth to the north, particularly as Mexico’s economic system plunges deeper into recession. If Trump wins a second time period, López Obrador might be calculating he’ll have a buddy for the remaining 4 years of his administration. If the Democrats take workplace, he trusts they may respect the significance of the bilateral relationship and never maintain a grudge.
“Maybe he’s making the right bet and we don’t know it,” mentioned Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, affiliate professor at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government. She expects Trump to use the go to to rally his base, maybe even reviving the declare that Mexico pays for the border wall, a subject López Obrador repeatedly dodged Tuesday.
“He’s conscious of what can happen,” she mentioned. “It happened to Peña Nieto. It can easily happen to him.”
López Obrador insists that he has no want to be drawn into U.S. home politics. He says he’s going to mark the brand new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which took impact July 1.
“There is no way (López Obrador) can spin this visit in his favor,” mentioned Tony Payan, director of the Center for the United States and Mexico at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.
Payan mentioned the commerce accord doesn’t benefit wading into U.S. political waters. “The (trade) agreement is done, finished and in force,” he mentioned. “There is no need to thank anyone. There is no need to express any kind of gratitude. There is no need for a pilgrimage.”
That’s a call Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apparently reached in deciding not to attend the meeting.
On Monday, López Obrador added another excuse.
“If we have a good relationship with the United States government, we are going to avoid mistreatment” of Mexicans dwelling within the U.S., López Obrador mentioned. López Obrador has repeatedly raised the significance of the remittances despatched house by migrants and praised them as heroes.
Payan mentioned immigration is at all times on the bilateral agenda, however he sees little probability for Mexico successful any concessions from Trump, whose administration continues to curtail authorized and unlawful immigration.
“I think Trump is more interested in restricting access to the American labor market today more than ever,” Payan mentioned.
Mexico’s worrisome stage of violence — 2019 noticed the best variety of murders on file — might be a gap. López Obrador may ask for extra U.S. help in intelligence or monitoring drug traffickers’ monetary transactions.
He says he received’t undermine Mexico’s sovereignty and has been a harsh critic of the Merida Initiative that introduced U.S. monetary and materials help to Mexico as his predecessors battled the cartels.
For Trump, the go to is a chance to criticize his opponent for supporting NAFTA greater than 20 years in the past, possibling serving to garner votes within the Midwest states the place staff blamed the outdated commerce deal for prompting U.S. firms to shift manufacturing to Mexico, the place labor prices had been decrease.
Trump mentioned changing the “disastrous NAFTA trade deal” was one of many greatest guarantees he made to his supporters in 2016. Trade was maybe the only greatest motive he ran for president within the first place, Trump says.
He is fond of claiming that after NAFTA was created, the U.S. misplaced one in 4 manufacturing jobs whereas asserting that the brand new deal will create practically 100,000 new, high-paying American auto jobs, enhance exports for U.S. farmers and ranchers and enhance commerce with Mexico and Canada.
Trump is right that the United States has misplaced practically four million manufacturing unit jobs since that pact took impact in January 1994. But most economists attribute the losses extra to the recessions of 2001 and 2007-2009, automation and low-cost competitors from China.
Biden has mentioned he didn’t remorse voting for NAFTA throughout his time within the Senate. “Fair trade is important,” Biden has mentioned. “Not free trade. Fair trade. And I think that back in the time during the Clinton administration, it made sense at the moment.”
From López Obrador’s perspective, a great relationship with whoever occupies the White House is Mexico’s finest coverage.
“We’re going to offer our opinion, but we’re not planning for confrontation,” López Obrador mentioned Tuesday. “We’re going to look to convince, we’re going to seek understanding.”
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